Do we have evidence against the supernatural?

I think the answer is that we do not have have evidence against the supernatural. But then then we have no evidence for it. You could not find evidence for something that is seperate/ not interacting with our reality. We can speculate anything really and not find any evidence to contradict it.I think the thing is that untill there is evidence to suggest something is there i.e. having an effect on the universe in a physical way, the only way this supernatural "thing" can effect the universe is in its role as an idea. That is to say the idea of the supernatural can affect the physical universe but only by existing in the imagination of a mind. No mind, no supernatural.The supernatural can exist as a concept. If it does not interact with us on a physical level I would put that as near proof it does not exist independantly.

Good thought experiment with the two supernaturals....very elegantly put.

"Personally I think the word supernatural is a general word for things that are unknown and/or imagined and doesn't really have any substance outside of stories and literature." - purpledawnI agree; 'supernatural' is a concept we use to describe (in a very messy way) what we can't explain with science. I would like to say 'yet' but as QM shows us, we can't know every thing.However, a quark's motion variables not being fully known does not render it out side of 'natural'. There are things we may never know (at least simultaneously) but we don't need to invoke the supernatural.I would say 'supernatural' is a meaningless concept. I serves no purpose and can retard scientific inquiry, e.g. "goddunit"This message has been edited by Larni, 10-05-2005 07:04 AM

"Considering their cosmology, viewing God as literally above nature makes sense. He was part of the "higher realm." Eventually the word went on to be associated with spirits in the ghostly sense." -purpledawnI think you got it right. Supernatural seems to really mean pertaining to god. I know others may argue that it's not just god, but thats the question being asked here really; does god i.e. a supernatural entity (brace for definition quibbles) exist. I could rephrase the OP as "do we have evidence against god's existance?"BTW The Bible is not evidence for god, people.

""Need" (we don't need to invoke) is a utilitarian concept. Science and scientific theories are utilitarian. There's no need to invoke them... for science." -BenThen under what conditions must we invoke the supernatural or a god?"For "truth"? There's no argument for or against invoking supernatural for that. There's no reason to invoke supernatural when talking about "truth"... and there's no reason against it. "Truth" is, by the definition given by 1..61803 in this thread, supernatural. Parsimony is not a guideline applicable for the "supernatural", and therefore not applicable to "truth" -BenI stand by my statement that 'supernatural' is meaningless. The 'truth' is that which is so: what we think about it is irrelevant. We could believe that dragons live in the fridge. The truth is that they are not. You have to take a stand and say "if there were dragons we would detect evidence of dragons". If we lack the means to detect them what gave us the idea they were there in the first place? Some vague feeling? A dream? A book?"It serves the purpose for explaining the unexplainable. It definitely can retard scientific inquiry. But it's definitely not meaningless, and definitely serves some purpose."Some people simply seem unable to be satisfied with the answer "I don't know". Even labelling something, which gives the appearance of understanding, is more comfortable to people (in general) than simply leaving it "untouched" (a pure "I don't know"). Supernatural is then, in this regards, useful." -BenYeah I agree with you here. However, we need to get away from lablling what we don't know as 'supernatural'. This stops people wondering and testing evidence with their balony kit (I love that phrase! Good old Mr Sagan)."It's crazy to delude ourselves and describing ourselves as "rational animals." (pending definitions), we most certainly are not. We should face the reality of our psychological traits. "Supernatural", or "explaining that which we do not know", is critical to what we are." -BenAgain here we agree. However the use of the word supernatural in place of "we don't know yet" is very bad for the reason I stated above.What is wrong with "I don't know yet"? This response may get someone else to ponder the question. If he/she is smart he/she has an opportunity to increase humanity's knowledge base. If you say the equivalent of "goddunit" he/she stops pondering.When we stop pondering we may as well lay down and die.

"In my opinion, people who prefer the "Goddidit" approach, or are satisfied with it, simply do not like the idea of living in a world that is not "complete". Tentativeness feels uncomfortable to them. I think they feel better when they can pretend to themselves that things simply are the way they should be. And no further questions need to be asked, no uncertainty to worry about. God takes care of everything." - AnnafanI agree. Thats what makes science so damn wonderful; it is a tool to expand our knowledge. We should teach our kids to think of uncertainty as an opportunity explore. If we don't know whats over that ther hill, go on have a look! Cultures that have "goddit" will never get anywhere. I'm English and had no idea that creationism was ever mentioned in American biology text books. Or even that there was a counter current to evolution. "Goddit" is a cultural maliase. Belief in the supernatural is acceptance that we should stop looking for answers.End rant. This message has been edited by Larni, 10-07-2005 10:41 AM